


whatever our souls are made of

by GryfoTheGreat



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Crossover, F/M, Horses, Music, My First Smut, Opium, Organized Crime, Past Drug Use, Persona 3 - Freeform, Piano, Teahouse AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 18:55:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GryfoTheGreat/pseuds/GryfoTheGreat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...his and mine are the same. Collection of oneshots written for RivaMika Week on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chrysanthemum Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for RivaMika Week Day 1: Chance Meetings.  
> Teahouse AU - He first meets her when she almost drops a cup on his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Characters: Levi, Mikasa Ackerman, RivaMika  
> Notes: I’m too cool for coffeehouse AUs so I let my inner tea fangirl have her way with this one hhhh

The tea house is not very noticeable, tucked as it is in between a cluttered bookstore and a fabrics shop. The sign reads ‘Ajisai Kissaten’, and the words are rendered again in flowing kanji beneath. From the outside it does not look too remarkable, windows screened by taupe blinds and walls an indistinct sage green, but inside the shop is another story.

The walls are silk, showing scenes of Heian ladies peering out from behind their sleeves at heavenly gardens, of samurai standing atop monstrous beasts, of gods and goddesses on ephemeral clouds eyeing their lands beneath. The floors are polished walnut and there are no chairs, only elaborately embroidered cushions scattered around low tables. Music is always playing, the traditional Japanese sort that is resplendent with lush koto and tinkling piano.

Levi loves it.

The teahouse is a world away from his reality of long hours and long sleepless nights, of strategy and councils and Erwin’s eyes, hardening as he sends yet another soldier to yet another pointless end in the tenuous name of peace.

(It’s world away from his childhood, small apartments and cockroaches in the bathtub and dirty sheets and too many siblings, too much for such a scrawny little boy.)

Unfortunately, he does not visit as often as he likes; his last visit was a month ago. When he enters, the bell tinkles and the old couple that run the place bow slightly when they see him. He bows back instinctively and takes his seat in a secluded alcove, below a calligraphy scroll. There are only five or so other people in the place, and their voices swell in harmony with the music.

He picks up the menu to order, smoothing out the folds in the corners. Usually, looking at menus frustrates him (why does there have to be a salad with everything nowadays? Why the hell would you even pureé peas?) but here, it is a pleasure. The menu reads like poetry, words like ‘jasmine’ and ‘rooibos’ and ‘gyokuro’ and ‘oolong’ and ‘sencha‘ mixing potently in his head.

Today he goes for ginger tea, but when he looks around for a server the usual kid doesn’t answer. Instead, a girl rushes over to him, neatly pinned hair threatening to fall out.

“Your order, sir?” she queries, bowing evenly.

“A ginger and lemon tea, please.” He eyes her strangely. Her face is oval and porcelain pale, like a doll’s, but her eyes are charcoal black, and the curved bow of her lips is set as she scribbles down his order.

“Certainly.” She bows again, not as deeply this time, and scurries away. He looks away, but the girl is still prominent in his mind’s eye.

She is an improvement over the last boy, an awkward kid who always bowed few moments too late and repeated everything you said, and she is much easier to look at. Levi isn’t the kind of person to notice these things, but the girl’s delicate Japanese features have caught his eye. Her kimono (grey, with white chrysanthemums), however, is far too dull for a girl like her. Blood red or cobalt blue would suit her better.

He sighs, pushes her out of his mind, and pulls out his book on historical serial killers. Heavy material, but Levi finds it gruesomely fascinating.

He doesn’t notice her coming over with his order until the teacup falls off the tray.

Levi grabs it barely in the nick of time, just as she reaches for it. Their hands clasp under the combined weight of the cup and for a few moments they are locked into a state of equilibrium, her other hand holding precariously onto the tray and his occupied with holding his book.

Their eyes meet, and he feels the weirdest need to look away from this slight serving girl as he drops his book and grabs the cup from atop their entwined hands. He places it gently on the table, and the soft ‘clink’ it makes breaks the spell.

The girl shocks back, places the tray hastily on the table and drops into a deep bow. “I-I apologize!” she stammers, her bow dipping even lower. “I was clumsy and I-”

“It’s fine,” he interjects, as she looks up, startled, from beneath her eyelashes. The steel gray of her irises is striped evenly by the shadow of her eyelashes. “No harm, no foul. Just… don’t do it again.” She looks completely baffled, one eyebrow quirking upwards slightly. “What?”

“I am sorry, but…”She rises lithely out of the bow, sleeves sliding back down her toned arms. “The old server told me you were… scary, and that if I made a mistake with you you’d get really annoyed, and-”

He quiets her with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Ignore him. Just pour the goddamn tea.” She obeys him readily and picks up the black pot, tilting it gracefully towards the cup. His eyes devour the exposed flesh of her inner wrist hungrily. “What’s your name? I can’t keep calling you ‘pretty Asian girl’.”

The flow of tea sputters as he says ‘pretty’ and he can’t help the smirk that spreads across his lips. “Mikasa Ackerman, sir,” she discloses, the stream of tea returning to normal. “Yours?”

“Levi,” he declares.

One inky eye peers at him. “Just Levi?”

“Just Levi,” he affirms.

“…Interesting.” she comments. “If I may be so bold, I think it suits you.” Her lips curve into a smile that you could never describe as delicate. It puts him mind of something else, something decidedly more feral than a quiet teahouse and a fragrant cup of ginger tea.

Maybe that’s why he grabs at her sleeve as she straightens up and places the pot back down, but when she looks down her aquiline nose at him, he loses his nerve.

“Yes?” she inquires, head tilting. Her short black hair brushes against one half-bare shoulder, kimono slightly disordered by his rather violent pull on her sleeve.

“…Nothing. Get back to work, Miss Ackerman.”

As she walks way, he hears her snort quietly.

He spends the rest of his stay sipping his tea, reading his book, and sneaking glances at her from the corner of his eye. A few times he catches her staring back and he averts his gaze, ginger peppery on his tongue.

When he exits the teahouse, he leaves an empty cup, a similarly empty teapot, a much too generous tip for a server that almost dropped a cup on his head, and a phone number. Mikasa smiles to herself and slips it inside the obi fitted around her waist, and uses the tip to buy herself a cup of ginger and lemon tea when her shift is over.


	2. pay every price, bear every burden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for RivaMika Week Day 2: Burden.  
> It isn’t easy to look out at the world from atop a pedestal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating:G  
> Characters:Levi, Mikasa Ackerman, RivaMika, PONIES  
> Notes: idek how the horses got here they just did and I’m happy because I got to make a Jean horse joke fufufufu ALSO Mikasa calls her mom ‘Kaachan’ in this, which I believe is Japanese for ‘mom’ so I hope that clears that up!

Mikasa has never been part of the crowd. She has never been mundane, never been someone you could just look away from.  
When she was small, it was her appearance. She lacked the features typical to most (brown hair and eyes of the same shade, or maybe fair hair and blue eyes), as did her kaachan. She would cringe into Kaachan’s skirts and peer out at the little boys and girls who would drop their playthings to stare.

They never came over to play with her.

But it is a burden she bore with Kaachan, shared equally between their shoulders, so she did not find it hard. Instead, she took pride in her heritage, learning their language and traditions eagerly. Her kaachan would cradle her in her lap, ebony hair tickling her neck, as she leaned over her shoulder and pointed out the intertwining motifs in the old pattern book.

That utopia was temporary, of course, and then she became an orphan.

It is not much of a burden, nowadays; she has Eren and Armin and rest of 104th for a family, even if it is a rag-tag-bunch-of-misfits kind of clan. But back then, when Kaachan’s scarlet neck and her papa’s empty eyes were all she dreamed about, even Karla Jaeger’s lullabies could do nothing to help. Over time, the wound of her parent’s demise healed, but sometimes it aches in the middle of the night when she recalls snatches of song and belly laughs and bowls of cinnamon soup.

Nowadays, the biggest burden of all weighs heavily on her broad shoulders.

“Graduated top of her class,” they whisper. “They say she’s worth a hundred soldiers…”

She is one of humanity’s strongest, she’s top of the 104th, and when she glances at the little kids who stare at her and say, “I wanna be like her when I grow up!” she feels a little broken.

She’s not complaining. She knows she is strong, knows that this is something she can live up to, but it is hard, harder than anything. Some people say it is worse to be weak, but Mikasa disagrees. The worst is when people look up to you, place you above them like you’re better than them, when all you want is to stand beside them.

Over the course of her years in the Training Corps, she had gotten used to it, like an ox beneath a yoke. She does not mind helping, really; she helps Bertholdt with his 3DMG (the boy is simply too tall for the harnesses, but Mikasa does what she can), she runs with Christa and she spars with Ymir, but the other trainees watch from afar with fearful admiration.

But even with all her friends, it was still lonely at the top.

(Ten minutes into training, Levi flips her over like she’s a ragdoll and she rages at him, fizzing up in a froth of arms and nails. Levi’s legs get knocked out from under him but he swings on the momentum so that they land in a tangle of limbs and skin, his knee pressed firmly into her chest.

She has been beaten, she thinks, and it enrages her and intrigues her in equal part as she glares up at his face and watches a smile twist his lips.)

After a particularly pressing day, she retreats to the stables. It is past her curfew, but she cannot find it in herself to really care.

Some of the recruits work incredibly well with the huge chargers they ride. Christa and hers are almost one and the same, and Armin does surprisingly well with his for a boy who gotten bitten by a donkey when he was ten. Jean’s horse trails after him like a lovesick teenager, but the boy does his best to ignore the poor thing.

Unfortunately, Mikasa and her horse, Pallen, do not get along well. She rides, he walks. No connection. She would be lying if she said it did not annoy her.

But there is a certain peace to be found in brushing his coat, in soaping the leather tack and cleaning the hay out of the stall, in feeding the beast bits of apple and carrot from the centre of her palm.

For once, she is not alone. There is another person in the stall over, their head barely reaching over the wall. “Levi,” she thinks, “it has to be.” She cannot see exactly what he is doing, so in a probably unwise move, she hooks her food into the manger of straw mounted on the stall and gawks over at the captain.

He is petting his palfrey (“Zelter,” she remembers, “that’s what she’s called,”) in a fashion that could only be described as tender. He’s rubbing the velvety patch just above the mare’s nose as she presses into his palm, whickering.”No more food,” he tells her gently. “I gave you all I had. Stop being so goddamn greedy!” He reaches up to pat her cheek and scratch behind her ears. “Typical woman,” he grumbles, words at odds with his tone of voice.

Mikasa gets the feeling that she is intruding on something private so, in an attempt to be polite, she tries to clamber noiselessly down from the manger and leave the stable without being seen.

Of course, as she’s alighting, Pallen decides to pay her some attention and butts the back of her neck roughly, presumably searching for food. She loses her balance, shrieks like a little girl and falls heavily on her rump, a cloud of dust rising above her. Pallen sounds like he’s laughing as he bows his majestic head to nudge her cheek.

Levi had to have noticed her, and as expected, he rushes over and bursts into the stall to find a dusty, dirty Private Ackerman sitting on her ass and a rather satisfied-looking horse.

First, he yells at her for sneaking out of the dorms, even if it was to spend time with her horse. When she tries to call him out for being up too, he shushes her and moves onto the next point.

“Don’t spy on people! Didn’t your mama tell you not to stare?”

She stares back at him contemptuously. He swears underneath his breath and continues, hand raking through his hair.

“Finally, you are absolutely filthy. What the hell did you do? Did you decide to take a nap in the stall? Did someone dare you to? I bet it was Springer, he has less brains than goddamn hair-”

“Sir, with all due respect, my horse knocked me down!”

“Why?”

That small word stumps her as she glares up at him.

“Because…” It galls her to say this. “He doesn’t like me.”

The captain’s lips form a hard line. “Look, Ackerman, I’ve seen you in equestrian training, and you’re doing it all wrong.” He steps gingerly past her to reach for Pallen, who inconceivably reacts well to him, whinnying as the captain pats his flank. “You’re treating your horse as a tool, when rightfully you should be treating him as an equal… These horses are the lifeblood of the Scouting Legion. We wouldn’t get shit done without them. In fact, I think they bear their burdens better than we do.”

Mikasa gets to her feet while he talks, not bothering to clean herself off. She understands what he means, or at least she thinks she does, but there’s something strange in his eyes that says he is not truly talking about the horses. “Yes, sir,” she murmurs. “May I…?” He steps away and allows her access to Pallen, and she brushes lightly past the captain to stand beside her horse.

“You’re better than what I give you credit for, aren’t you?” she admits to him. “I’m sorry.” She rubs circles into the horse’s neck. “We have a lot in common, you and I… excepting the whole species thing.” Levi’s gaze is a tonne weight on her back. “I… I’ll try to treat you better from now on.” With a final pat she steps back from her Pallen, who peers back at her with what she almost swears is grudging respect. When she turns around to Levi, his eyes hold almost the exact same emotion. She considers him, their eyes locked on each other. Levi’s gaze keeps returning to her neck, to her throat and the old red scarf tangled around it, but she looks at his face and observes the minute expressions that flit across his countenance, from twisted lip to narrowed eye to furrowed brow. His eyes are rather darker than usual, the pupils dilated to drink in the dim light of the stable.

He coughs, and the connection breaks. “Go to bed, Ackerman,” he drawls, voice considerably rougher than his usual even tone. “Clean yourself up, too. You look like a pig.”

She refuses to rise to his bait and bites her lip. “Goodnight, captain,” she returns. “Sleep well.”

He scoffs as she leaves the stable, and her hands ball themselves into fists in her pockets, anger bubbling beneath her skin.

The next day, Pallen listens to her at a suitably difficult series of jumps, and they leap over each and every one without fault, making hairpin turns and quick transitions from trot to canter with ease. When she glances over at Levi in the corner of the yard, he doesn’t look quite as grim as usual, and a strange bubble of pride swells in her chest. He doesn’t even acknowledge her achievement, but the unspoken praise in his eyes is enough.


	3. colour me in carmine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for RivaMika Week Day 3: Red.  
> She has every reason to be embarrassed, really; Levi just likes watching her blush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: M  
> Characters: Levi, Mikasa Ackerman, RivaMika  
> Notes: I WROTE SMUT MOM I’M SORRY. They don’t even take their pants off but hnghhhhh this was hard! and frustrating

He drops a few feather light kisses onto her collarbones and snickers. “What’s wrong?” he teases her. “Embarrassed?”  
“No!” She pouts at him, peering out from beneath her eyelashes. “You promised you’d be nice…”

“I am being nice,” he says drily, trailing his fingers up and down her hip bones. “Unless, of course, you’re not enjoying yourself…”

She takes a few moments to respond, following the trail of his hands up her waist through half-lidded eyes. “I… I am…” She takes a shaky breath and slides her hands down from his broad shoulders, caressing the dips between biceps and triceps, pressing at his ulna and radius before finally securing his wrists with her hands. “But…”

This is my first time, he hears behind her words. It is not yours.

“If you want to stop,” he reassures her, forehead pressed to hers, “you need only say no.”

(There’s something else he’s worried about, niggling at him subconsciously, something he’s only heard from Eren in the darkest of times; a tale of a little farming family and three greedy robbers and a little boy that saved only one. It all sounds rather storybook, but Eren’s dimmed eyes, tangled hands and the tales of child trafficking he has heard lend a more ominous tone to the story.

Nine years old and three bodies behind them - but he clears all that from his mind. There is a time and place for everything.)

She meets his eyes, biting her bottom lip. This is the most flustered he’s ever seen Ackerman, and that includes the time her dear brother used her chest bindings to wrap up a cut on his forehead.

“I want to do this,” she finally declares, more to herself than him. “I want you, Levi.”

He can’t help the feeling that writhes in his stomach as she says this, head angled slightly away from his, cheeks glowing scarlet to match her crimson lips. He takes her chin in his hand and re-orients her to face him. “Then don’t look away from me,” he growls lightly, running his thumb along her jaw line. “I want to see every dainty little face you make.” Her eyes glint and he kisses her forcefully, hands locking her wrists in place. There are no stars, no fireworks, no sudden rush of sensation - but she’s warm and supple, the bones of her wrist digging into his palms. “I want to hear every single noise you let out,” he murmurs into her mouth, grazing her bottom lip with his teeth. She lets out a little squeak and he changes target and kisses her neck. “Tasting you would be nice, too.” He runs a finger along the waistband of her red shorts and her fingers tangle into his hair, tugging on the fine hairs at the nape of his neck. She wriggles a little as his hands run down her muscled thighs and lets out a noise that sounds vaguely like ‘shirt!’

The shirt is one of his, so while it easily accommodates her broad shoulders and sinewy arms, it clings tightly to her bandaged bust and reveals a strip of washboard-flat abdomen. He unbuttons her with shaking hands and kisses down the path he bares, and Mikasa has only to lift up her arms and stretch out her long torso and arms to get the damned thing off. He slides a hand under her bandages and grazes the sensitive underside of her breast, revelling slightly in her strangled moan. He leans back and surveys her; flushed cheeks, swollen lips, blooming love bites littered over her jugular and clavicles, a reddish mark on the inside of her wrist, the shocking cardinal red of her shorts.

Mikasa whimpers a little and stretches forward, tugging clumsily at his belt, one hand slipping into his pants and cupping his crotch. “Sir,” she says breathily, bound breasts pressing into his bare chest, hot breath ghosting along his ear, “Stop slacking on the job. Do me.”

“I like you in red,” he says thickly, highly aware of Mikasa’s nimble fingers stroking him, choking back a whine. His mind conjures up an image of her wearing that scarf and only that goddamned scarf; he’s sure it wouldn’t smell like Eren anymore after that. “Mostly, though, I like you in nothing at all.” With that, he presses himself closer to her, closes the gap between their hips, and tugs deftly at the cloth that binds her chest; it unravels a little too slowly for his liking, but so far, he’s enjoying taking it slow, and he’s sure Mikasa is too, from the red blush rising on her shoulders, her arms, her thighs.

“Embarrassed now?” he says smugly.

“Just fuck me already,” she replies irritably, and he laughs deliriously into the dip between her breasts, shoulders quaking.


	4. burning up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for RivaMika Week Day 4: Tired.  
> If she touches him, his jagged, broken edges will shred her. Why does she still bother?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: M (drug abuse)  
> Characters: Levi, Mikasa Ackerman, Hanji Zoe, RivaMika  
> Notes: My Levi headcanons are showinggggg. This was hard to write, but it came out a lot better than expected… and by that I mean I’m actually super proud of this!

Mikasa curls up on the chair, keeping watch over the captain as he slumps over the huge monster of a desk that he uses.

“Permission to speak, sir?”

“Denied.” He doesn’t even move, and the words are muffled, as if he were too exhausted to even open his lips.

She remains quiet or a further two minutes.

“Sir, with all due respect…”

“Private, with no due respect, shut the fuck up.” The words are spoken flatly, with none of his usual venom.

She pulls her knees closer to her chest and curls her feet further into the hard chair. Hanji had asked to her to watch the captain. If it were anyone else, she would have given up long ago and left Levi to stew in his own wretched misery.

“Squad Leader, would it not be better to let him grieve on his own?” she had questioned.

Hanji had looked at her with something that bordered on sympathy, but was somehow less patronising. “If it were anyone else… but not Levi. If we leave him alone for too long he’ll have the hair shirt on before we know it.” She had sighed and pushed her fringe away from her wan face. “I would do it myself, but…” Hanji had to grieve herself; she had lost many in this expedition too. The members of the Special Operations Squad were her friends as well, not just Levi’s. “Mikasa, I trust you. Please?”

She remembered, back when she first came to live with the Jaegers, how Karla had stayed with her whenever it got bad, when it hit her sometimes that Kaachan and Papa were really properly gone, and that they would never ever ever come back. She usually tried to keep it to herself, but somehow Karla always noticed and made sure to stay with her. Even if all Eren’s mother was doing was darning some item of clothing that her rambunctious son had unsurprisingly managed to tear, and even if she was on the other side of the room, it reassured her that there was someone there who would protect her. Soon after that, she began to call her Mama, but Doctor Jaeger remained Doctor Jaeger.

She had nodded, and Hanji had given her a weary smile. “It’ll only be for a short while. I suspect we’ll be summoned to HQ before long… from what Erwin said, we’ll have much more to worry about then.” The Squad Leader’s face momentarily takes on an ominous cast before she claps Mikasa cheerlessly on the back and exits.

So Mikasa does her job, guards Levi, and shuts up.

The captain isn’t great to look at right now. He looks a spectral, desiccated imitation of his usual self, the self that indulged regularly in fart jokes and managed to append the word ‘fuck’ onto most of sentences some way or another. His skin is haggard, and he clings onto the edge of his desk as if it were the only thing connecting him to life. His eyes are almost closed, and his hair is lank and greasy, which alarms her a lot more than anything else could. Grimy smudges of black mar his face and his uniform, but he doesn’t seem to care.

This Levi is yet another Levi to add to her mental collection.

There is the man who brutalised her brother, stomped on him until blood bubbled past his lips, his face unfeeling as her brother’s bones cracked underneath his boots.

(There is always an undercurrent of this Levi, a vein of hatred running through her, even if she knows why it had to be done; it still makes her see red.)

There is the no-nonsense commando who subjects his soldiers to punishing drills, who spews language as dirty as his blades are clean, who grapples and pushes and yells and kills with uncanny accuracy, the soldier who is the complete opposite of what his stupid cravat indicates.

(The raw, visceral man who smirks at her during training and leers at her abdomen and legs too, he’s mixed in with that one, the one she dreams about at night who keeps her up with hot flushes and cold sweats.)

There is the father to his men, the guy who sits down the end of his table with a mug of coffee and watches his inferiors with this strange warmth in his eyes, the man who sneaks his horse tidbits and gives praise so sparingly yet so glowingly, it inflates your head for two days.

Finally, there is this broken creature; a listless hull, a sleepless shell who stares out from behind lifeless eyes and just looks.

She unfolds herself from the chair and pads over to the desk, and crouches down in front of it to put herself on eye level with Levi.

“Fuck off, Ackerman,” he says without preamble.

“No, sir.”

“Well, don’t fucking squat there like you’re taking a shit! Get a chair!”

“Captain, if you’re going to make yourself uncomfortable, I shall too.” She fixes him with a steely gaze. He acquiesces without comment, and Mikasa kneels down in front of the desk. She can barely see the top of Levi’s head, but being able to hear him breathe puts her at ease.

She loses track of time, watching his back rise and fall with hushed breaths, but before long the room is dark. Neither of them makes any move to break the darkness, or, indeed, the silence.

Until Levi does.

“Why aren’t you with Jaeger?” The words are ragged and said in a stilted fashion, as if his voice wasn’t quite willing to perform.

“He’s in the ward right now, and I wasn’t helping him by hovering over him. Armin is with him now.” She had spent the entire ride home lying down beside him in the cart, feeling every bump in the track and observing every flutter of Eren’s chest, but her brother didn’t need her right now. It hurt to say it, but it was true.

“You aren’t helping me by staying here either.” These words hurt too, but if her face shows that, Levi doesn’t see it.

“I am not going to leave you until you go to sleep.”

“Silly little girl… that would be worse, wouldn’t it?” There’s a galling sort of laughter in his voice as he speaks that makes her clench her hands into fists as she retorts.

“Sir, I-”

“I’ll have nightmares,” he confides to her, as he slowly sits back up. His head tips back as his spine straightens, and his gaze pierces the ceiling. His neck seems unnaturally long, and at this point Mikasa doesn’t know whether she wants to wraps her hands around it and kill him, or kiss up his smooth white neck and fuck him. “I’ll dream about puppet Gunther on a string and crumbled, shattered, smashed Erd… I’ll see Petra, lovely in the white pallor of death; I’ll see Auruo, the stupid moron, killed by his bravado.” The poisonous words break out of him in gushes, voice lilting with twisted inflections. “I’m so tired, little girl, but I’m too terrified of sleep to sleep.” His lips twist up in a hollow smile, but his eyes are warm with fervour.

Mikasa tries to speak, but no words are forthcoming.

“What?” His head snaps down and his eyes bore into her, making her shoulders push back and her chin jut up. “You think I’m insane? Let me tell you something… everyone here is insane. You just haven’t noticed it yet.” With that he collapses back onto the desk, but his eyes remain trained on her. His gaze is tormenting, and Mikasa has to struggle to keep her face even, but she can’t hold back a shiver; Levi looks so hopeless, so hateful, and he’s concentrating all that emotion solely on her.

But he notices her discomfort and his eyes soften imperceptibly, the strange zeal in his eyes fading. “I’m scaring you, aren’t I?” He cradles his face in his large hands. “Mikasa, I’m… I’m very sorry.” He seems to be on the brink of saying something else, but he swallows back the words.

Mikasa’s body is screaming at her to run; flipping between such intense emotions isn’t normal, and his apology only puts here more on edge. The way he’s exposing his vulnerabilities to her is eerily riveting, but it appalls her as well. She stands up suddenly, but Levi takes no heed; he’s rummaging in a drawer of his desk, hissing inaudibly beneath his breath. He yanks out an unlabeled bottle and begins to fumble with the cork, breathing becoming irregular, and she steps closer and reaches out her hand but retracts it immediately. Finally Levi gets the cork out, spilling some of the liquid onto the desk. With shaking hands he begins to raise the bottle to his lips, but-

Mikasa recognises the smell.

Her papa used to get horrible pains when she was small, but he rarely, if ever, asked Doctor Jaeger to treat him. Snatches of a half-remembered argument come back to her, of her kaachan begging him to get Doctor Jaeger to treat him and her papa stubbornly refusing.

“I don’t want to get addicted to that stuff!” he’d say, voice full of loathing. But he must have submitted to Kaachan’s demands sometimes, because she remembers him drinking the medicine. It smelled bitter, the alcohol mixed in with it doing nothing to deaden the noxious smell.

“What is it, Papa?” she’d ask, face turned up to him like a sunflower seeking the sun.

“Medicine,” he’d reply, eyes half-lidded. “Laudanum.”

“Can I have some?”

“No, sweetheart. This medicine is very bad for little girls… but I guess it’s bad for big dads too.”

She quietened for a few seconds, and then proclaimed “I hope you get better soon!” with a bow, just like her kaachan taught her. He chuckled sleepily and ruffled her hair, but then Kaachan asked her to help her to clean up, and she had to leave him to sleep.

Tincture of opium, she realises, as she plucks the bottle from his grip just as the first drop of the narcotic touches Levi’s lips. She holds it up into the air far out of his grasp. “No, Captain!” She dodges backwards quickly as he grabs weakly at her.

“God fucking damn it - give it to me!” His voice cracks pathetically, and she realises with dawning dread that he’s actually crying, tears forming in his eyes. “I want to sleep! I want to sleep and not have nightmares!” he cries incoherently, hands slamming against the desk and causing various papers to slide off.

“Sir, please, I don’t want you to-”

He jumps onto his feet unsteadily and limps towards her. She tries to escape, but something about the desperation evident in every movement of his body and every twist of his face weighs her down with guilt, and soon he has her pinned to the wall. She keeps the bottle high above her head and out of his grasp, but Levi squeezes her arm painfully and forces the muscles of her arm to contract. Her hand drops and he snatches at the bottle, but just in time she hurls it away from her with all her vast strength, and the bottle of laudanum shatters against the wall.

The room is filled with the scent of astringent opium and saccharine alcohol, and Levi collapses, sliding to his knees at her feet, hands trailing down her legs. She tries to apologize, but it gets stuck in her throat, and all that comes out is a quiet keening noise. Instead she stays completely still, as does the man crumpled at her feet.

“Clean that up, Ackerman,” he finally rasps, and her heart contracts viciously.

“Tomorrow, sir,” she assures him, trying and failing to keep her voice neutral. “Now, you have to go to bed.”

He obeys her without complaint, letting her pull him to his feet like a child. His body shifts against hers and she bites her lip as she manoeuvres him until he is arranged comfortably, leaning on her shoulder.

Together, they leave his office. Luckily, his bedroom is only a short distance away, so their awkward duo of injured, insensible Levi and too-tall Mikasa only has to struggle on for about four minutes before they arrive at their destination.

They stumble into the room, both trying to squish through the door simultaneously. Levi almost topples over but Mikasa steadies him, and drags him to his bed.

She stays there while he looks at her weirdly. “Get out,” he slurs. “I need to change.”

“I’m not leaving you alone, sir.” Her boldness surprises her, but she does not blush.

He regards her suspiciously and sighs, flapping a hand at her. “Cover your eyes, then.” His voice is thick from tiredness and hoarse from misuse, but Mikasa can’t say it makes for an unattractive combination. She complies with his orders and turns around dutifully, observing the shapes Levi’s stripping shadow makes and trying to ignore the sounds of fabric sliding over flesh and leather belts slowly unclasping.

When she turns around, he is seated on the bed clad only in his underclothes and is rubbing his hand against the back of his neck, fingers grazing over the black stubble there. The waxiness of his skin has subsided slightly, but his face sill looks alarmingly hollow. He clears his throat and his eyes settle on her neck. “I assume if you aren’t going to leave me…” He trails off lamely, words hanging off in an ambiguous implication.

“I want to watch over you,” she says guardedly, not letting any hint of timidity show through in her voice.

His gaze flickers away from her as he settles himself into bed. “Do whatever you want, then,” he commands. She pulls up a chair and intends to sit at the bottom of his bed, but on impulse pulls it up beside him.

“What? Ackerman-”

“I was told to stay with you.” she states in a tone that reeks of finality.

He grouses to himself, but he closes his eyes anyway and a few minutes later, when she thinks he is asleep, he speaks again.

“Thank you, Ackerman.” She can’t see his face, only the broad expanse of his back, and she wonders if he’s smiling.

“My pleasure, captain,” she replies, words slightly muffled by the sheets as she rests her head on the empty space beside him. “Sweet dreams.”

He lets out a little ‘tch!’ and doesn’t say another thing for the entire night.

Sleep claims both of them easily. Mikasa does not dream.

When Hanji enters the captain’s quarters the next morning to tell him of the summons to Wall Sina, she finds Levi and Mikasa fast asleep, arms entangled on the sheets. Their noses are separated by a hand’s width.

She decides to let them be. The bad news will keep for another hour.


	5. Cage Fights and Cigarettes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for RivaMika Week Day 5: Alternate Universe.  
> Mafia AU – The heart is just a bloody motor. The head is meant to drive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating:M (no sex, just violenceeeee)  
> Characters:Levi, Mikasa Ackerman, RivaMika  
> Notes: Mafia AU + crossdressing Mikasa + thug Levi = fanfiction heaven, for me at least! (If you don’t listen to the Great Gatsby movie soundtrack while reading this you’re doing it wrong.)

The building is not very inconspicuous. The windows blaze with light and muffled club music thumps loudly, barbed wire trailing over every available surface like ivy. Sounds of human life bubble beneath her feet and emanate from the basement door. The steps are sleek and slippery, but Mikasa keeps her balance. The guards on the door don’t give her a second glance. There is no guest list for a place like this, only a list of personae non gratae, and none of those are stupid enough to present themselves here unless they want to get their heads ripped off.

Mikasa is one of those people, but it’s amazing what binders, hair gel and masculine clothes can do. She herself doesn’t look androgynous, but with the help of eyebrow paint and fake stubble she makes a rather rugged man, and the cargo pants, oversized leather jacket and Timberlands are the icing on the cake. Having her hair puffed up on tip of her head in a dangerously trendy hairstyle feels weird, and she misses the swish of it against her cheeks, but it is a sacrifice she is more than ready to make.

Inside, the atmosphere is provocative and rude, and the air reeks of salt, metal and soot. The clink of glass, the roar of fighters and the rush of profane talk swirls around her.

She wishes she had her scarf, but it’s too trademark to wear on a job like this.

The underground burrow is known jokingly as the Gentleman’s Club, even though many women are present as well, and not just whores. Females are accepted, but they attract just a little more attention than a male would, and that is attention Mikasa would rather not attract. The main attractions are the cage fights, where fighters can make or break their fortune in a single violent second. In the cage next to her, a girl with feline black tiger stripes tattooed over cruel scars and a boy who wouldn’t look out of place servicing madams in a in a bordello grapple. The mass of people around the cage fist their hands in the metal barriers and whoop and spit as the gigolo takes a powerful hit to his stomach, but he retaliates with a crushing roundhouse to the tiger’s sinewy legs. Mikasa moves on quickly, wending her way through the crowd.

She passes a knot of people tangled together around a hookah, the acidic smell burning her nostrils and making her feel slightly woozy. She dodges away and reaches the bar in a few sure strides. She orders a Jaegerbomb, to settle her almost non-existent nerves, but also to help her blend in. The bartender, a girl with her head shaved into exotic looping patterns, prepares her drink with crude finesse. Mikasa tosses her money at the girl, swallows the shot down and chugs the Red Bull in quick succession, but doesn’t order another; the bartender scowls at her and moves off. She scans the room, feeling the caffeine and alcohol settle on her nerves and brain.

She sees him almost immediately, banging the wall of a cage with his fist.

Her target.

Claus Wolter isn’t a big-time boss; in fact, he’s pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of turf wars and hitmen. But he had grudgingly helped Erwin with a job a few months previously, and somehow, the details had leaked, and Armin had traced it back to him. Apparently he’d fallen for the whole Mata Hari shtick one of the Sinas had pulled off. The girl was dead, but Wolter wasn’t.

Yet.

She slowly makes her way over to his group. She mixes with others, places bets, accepts slaps on the back and buys rounds for others, grinning and swearing and smirking her way through the throng, until she reaches Wolter’s crowd.

She places a bet, not too small and not too big, even though money is no real object; Erwin had given her a huge wodge of bills to use. The two identical men in the cage clash, one as fair as the other is dark. Wolter spends his money extravagantly, placing a large bet on the black-haired one, but Mikasa’s blond pulls through. She gloats as loudly as she dares and, as planned, Wolter notices her and motions her over. Finally, she is in a position to pull off the hit, but if she goes ahead now she’ll be torn limb from limb.

Drinks are bought, but only her beer and another man’s vodka go untouched. She makes up a bullshit excuse about antibiotics, grimacing that ‘the girlfriend made me promise’; the men laugh and agree that women are trouble. The stocky woman tailing Wolter hits him playfully, and he slaps her ass in retaliation.

The other tee-total’s gunmetal eyes never leave her. He is painfully short, but in recompense for that is built like a small tree. He has forgone wearing a shirt, so she can see every detail of the myriad tattoos that coat his skin, badly disguising the ugly scars and bruises littered on his torso. His hair is undercut on both sides, the long tail of hair on the crown of his skull pulled back into a greasy tie, and she can see more black ink flourishing on his scalp. He is handsome in crude way, brows knotted together and mouth set in a hard line. She ignores him as best she can, and bides her time. Mikasa has always been good at waiting.

Moments pop up, here and there. The teetotaller flirts with Wolter’s woman and a fight threatens, but the short man defuses it with a few easy words. The money that slips through her fingers slowly grows from a trickle to a flood, and usually she would despise such a waste of resources, but for some reason she does not care; she is on a winning streak and she needs to keep it up. People cluster around her and touch her jacket, tug on her skin for good luck, but she does not let it get to her head. In once tense instance, the teetotaller ends up beside her, bodies pressed so close together she can feel the bone of his hips through the rough denim of his jeans, his strangely minty breath brushing against her neck. She composes herself easily, but when he next looks at him, having been separated by the jostle of people, there’s a thoughtful expression on his face as she he glances off in another direction.

Finally, she sees her moment. In the cage, the fight grows more intense, and one of the fighters hurls his opponent straight though the wall of their cage. The man’s insensible body lands with a crash in the middle of their little mob, and soon the ruckus turns into a full-blown brawl. Mikasa gets tangled into it as best she can, slipping her ring onto her finger. She slithers through the writhing thugs until she pops up next to Wolter, still unnoticed, and flicks the clasp of her ring open so that a small, needle-like piece of metal pops out. There is an open wound in his fleshy stomach and she plunges the needle into him there, pressing it into what she knows is a vein. She stays in the fray for another few minutes, throwing a few haymakers and receiving several herself. Finally, she extricates herself with minimal injuries. She cusses loudly at the goons, dodges a punch, and leaves the lair via an alternate exit in the women’s room, mussing up her hair and zipping up her jacket.

Once outside, she hurries to a nearby bar and leans against the wall outside. She pulls out her phone and texts Jean, quelling the rush of satisfaction from a job well done inside her chest.

‘Got dinner. No need to wait up. Love, Max.’

She stuffs the phone back into her pocket and slumps against the wall, eyes turning skyward. In this city, you can’t see the stars, so she pretends she can see them though the smog and mentally traces the constellations of her childhood. Her breath ices into clouds before her face, and she wishes for the nth time that she had her scarf.

Smoke stings her eyes.

She looks up, and the short man is here, unlit cigarette hanging limply from his lips.

He makes a motion with his hands like flipping a lighter open and into flame, but she shakes her head. He rolls his eyes and yanks a Hello Kitty disposable lighter out of his pocket. The ridiculous contrast does nothing to dampen the chills running down her spine, and she pulls the collar of her jacket up past her mouth in a poor imitation of her usual scarf-nuzzling move.

“Missing your scarf?” he comments, cigarette dangling from his fingers.

She gives him a cool glare in response, heart speeding up. How does this random hooligan know who she is?

He snorts. “Fuck, you really are as frigid as they say… though they generally also say you have a cunt.”

She tips her head to the side. “I am indeed female, if that’s what you’re saying. I can’t hear you past the fag.”

He grins at her. “Oh? Pity. You make a hot guy, but any self-respecting woman would never wear Timberlands.”

“No self-respecting woman would ever touch you.” She wants to leave, but Jean hasn’t replied yet, and she has to stay put until he gives her the all-clear. At the very least, they have her location; all their phones emit GPS signals every ten seconds. It’s Jean’s job to track them, but he might be slacking off and messing with Connie instead.

“Ohhhh! Shots fired! Please, keep talking.” His eyes drive into her like bullets. “You’re giving me the weirdest boner right now.”

She ignores him, pulling out her phone. He continues talking.

“Y’know, I’ll forgive you for kill-stealing.” Her head whips up and she stares at him. He takes another drag from the cigarette. “I saw what you did - very elegant, what with the ring and the secret needle.” His voice lilts up and down, sing-song and mocking. “Was there poison on it?”

She does not want to tell him, but the words spill out of her anyway. “He’ll be dead by dinnertime. They won’t detect it.”

He applauds her, the slap of flesh against flesh ringing bizarrely through the air. “Impeccable. You never get anything like that nowadays… it’s all firefights and stabbing. Bo-ring!”

“What’s your preferred method?” The question slips unbidden from her lips, gusting out with a frosty exhale of air.

The smile leaves his lips, replaced by a demented grimace. “I don’t give a fuck as long as I can watch the light fade from their eyes.”

“Levi. “ The word is whispered with something bordering on reverence.

“Bingo… Mikasa Ackerman.” The twisted imitation of a grin on his lips only grows wider.

Levi is a rogue, loyal to no-one but himself, who is famous for his perfect record; kill after heist after hit. There had been a niggling suspicion on the back of her mind when she first saw the man with the tattoos, but Levi was infamous for his hypochondria as well as for his brutally perfect aim. His cravat was memetic, and it was rumoured that he was born in a suit with a rifle in his hand. This desperado with smoke screening his face is nowhere near what she had imagined.

She wants to ask him why someone sicced him on poor Wolter, but she feels it would be inappropriate, like asking would fall foul of an ancient mobster code. Instead, she coughs involuntarily, the smoke making her eyes water; she loathes cigarettes.

“Can you get rid of that cancer stick?” she manages to get out, fingers fisting in the dark fabric of her cargo pants.

“Maybe.” He stalks over to her and even though she stands a full three inches taller than him, she feels terror pool in her stomach. He stubs the cigarette out on the breast pocket of her leather jacket, the smoke curling up into her nose and the heat penetrating easily to her skin. She makes no noise, even though the pain penetrates deep inside her jacket into the soft flesh of her flattened chest. Finally, the thing is extinguished, and Levi drops it and grounds it into a pulpy mess beneath the heel of his heavy black boot. He steps back from her with an air of satisfaction, hands stuffed into his pockets.

“My jacket is not an ashtray.” Her voice is not as even as she would like.

“I know.” He turns around and he begins to walk away, but his steps are slow and small as if he was wearing fetters of indecision. “Ackerman…” His shoulders hunch up, and he spins around and marches back towards Mikasa, yanking her down by her collar to his level “Tell your scouts, tell Erwin, that something big is coming.” His eyes dart frenetically from side to side. “Tell them the titans are advancing, and that no walls we put up will keep them out. Tell them.” He releases her and as she slouches down and as he walks away, his steps quickening into a slow run, her phone buzzes.

She doesn’t follow him and instead watches him raise a hand in farewell, the slap of feet against pavement in rhythm with the rise and fall of his shoulders. By the time she has checked Jean’s text (Sure, hun! Home safe Luc xxx) he is long gone.

Before long, the Chevy pulls up, and she clambers in. She doesn’t talk for the entire ride home, instead messing with the hole in her jacket (Eren is going to be pissed) and thinking about cage fights and cigarettes.

It is not her last meeting with Levi. It is, however, her last day without the cruel reality of titans.


	6. Auribus Teneo Lupum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for RivaMika Week Day 6: Fandom Crossover.  
> Persona 3 crossover – Friends, school, demons, and a very short senpai.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating:T  
> Characters:Levi, Mikasa Ackerman, Erwin Smith, Hanji Zoe, Eren Jaeger, Armin Arlert, RivaMika  
> Notes: Persona 3 crossovers are like crack to me. For the uninitiated, Persona 3 is an RPG set in a high school with dating sim elements, amazing music and a crazy supernatural plot and you should probably play it because, come on, JUNPEI IORI.

The roof is cold and windy, exposed to the elements. Levi stands before her, back turned towards her; she can see a gun in a holster on his leg, in addition to the twin blades clasped in his hands.

“What are you doing?” she asks, stepping forward slightly. The gun doesn’t scare her, and neither do the swords, not if her senpai is wielding them.

“Waiting, he replies, not once turning to her. His school blazer hangs off his shoulders like a cape, empty arms flapping.

Mikasa fists her hands in her school skirt, nails scraping against bare flesh, but she stays quiet. She trusts Hanji, trusts Erwin, and even if her senpai didn’t explain things too well, she has faith in them. The three of them are school idols in Shiganshina High; Erwin is the President of the Student Council, Hanji is the smartest person in school, even smarter than the teachers, and Levi is a former bousouzoku and current fencing championreformed through Erwin’s efforts, sabotaged bikes and a few fist fights.

But the three of them had said something about potential, earlier, when Erwin, Hanji and Levi had summoned them to the upstairs meeting room shortly after the three of them had arrived in Iwatodai Dorm.

“Would you believe me if I said a day was made up of 25 hours?” Erwin asks, stepping forward, hands clasped behind his back.

Eren makes a noise of derision. “Of course not! That’s stupid! Everyone knows-”

Armin elbows Eren in the stomach; Armin isn’t that strong, but because he’s so skinny his bony elbows can do quite a bit of damage. “Shut up!” he hisses. “Don’t you remember last night? This might explain it!” Eren quiets immediately. They had dismissed the strange hour last night of yellow moon and blood-red sea as some sort of dream, but all three of them know that there was something more sinister about it. She glances as Hanji, to see if the senior will tell her they’re joking, but her face is deadly serious.

“The Dark Hour,” Erwin continues,” is an hour between midnight and one second past midnight. Most people can’t sense the Dark Hour; for them, time freezes, and they do not sense a thing, and the clock moves on. But for some…”

“Like us,” Hanji interjects.

Erwin nods. “Some people stay in their normal form during the Dark Hour and experience all 60 minutes of it… and some of these people have what we call potential.” Levi steps forward with the briefcase and lays it on the table. He unlatches it, and the case swings open to reveal three guns and three red armbands. Eren grabs Mikasa’s hand, as does Armin, and Mikasa squeezes back. Guns rarely mean anything good, especially for a trio of kids orphaned under suspicious circumstances.

“During the Dark Hour,” Levi explains, “monsters emerge called Shadows. Their sole objective is to devour the minds of the living and turn them into the Lost. This is what has been causing Apathy Syndrome.” Mikasa has heard the term, had even seen a few lost souls wandering around. Their eyes are vacant, their posture hunched. These people are empty husks with no human spirit left within. “Some of us have the potential to fight these monsters. Pe-”

“Persona!” Eren interrupts. “That’s what- that’s what the old guy said last night! He said-” Mikasa digs her nails into Eren’s palm to shut him up.

Levi glares at Eren, but Erwin takes over before he has a chance to retort. “In any case, we use these guns, called Evokers, to summon our own Persona. They are a manifestation of our inner psyche, and have different weaknesses and strengths. For example, my Persona is strong with fire, or Agi, but weak to wind, or Garu. It is neutral to Bufu, which is ice, and Zio, which is electricity.”

Armin’s blue eyes are saucer-wide, and he soaks up the information like a sponge, chest rising rapidly with shallow breaths. Eren, however, is muttering under his breath, things like ‘crazy’ and ‘not true’ and ‘stupid senpai’; he has always been the kind of person who needs to see before he can believe, but Mikasa believes them. There is something in Erwin’s regimental stance, in the earnestness of Hanji’s smile, in Levi’s clenched fists.

“We believe you have the power.” Hanji grins at them, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, making the ribbon around her neck flutter. “This is why you were transferred here, but…” The grin melts from her face. “Tonight is a full moon, and I cans sense disturbances. The Shadows are always more agitated on nights like this, but this is unprecedented.”

Erwin’s face is a mirror of Hanji’s, clear worry drawing lines on his brow. Only Levi seems undisturbed, watching the proceedings with a cool expression on his face. “We need you all to protect the dorm. We can tell you the theory, but…” The student council president’s face hardens. “It’ll have to be a trial by fire.”

“We can only summon our Personas within the Dark Hour, so we’ll wait until it begins in… about twenty minutes to show you the basics.”

The senpai then brief them; all electrical appliances cease to function during the Dark Hour except for a few select pieces of apparatus granted by the Sina Group, stamina is depleted much more quickly in the Dark Hour but one can eventually build up greater reserves of strength to combat this, Personas are summoned by shooting yourself in the head (Eren didn’t react to this particular one very well) with an Evoker, which isn’t a gun but is, and the more scared and the more stressed you are, the easier it is to summon.

“So that means we can bully you all we like,” Levis says bluntly. Hanji elbows him, but he dodges expertly, as if he’s had plenty of experience with the whole ‘get away from Hanji before she damages me’ thing.

Armin raises his hand timidly, then realised he wasn’t in a classroom, and lowered it. Erwin pretended not to have noticed and nodded towards him, giving him leave to ask. “What form will our Persona take?” he questions, voice higher than usual.

Hanji throw she hands up in the air. “It changes!” Her eyes take on a fanatical gleam. “Mine is super cool - all diamond and graphite - but Erwin’s is a super buff guy with a flaming tree. Which, well, he can do lots of damage with said tree, but still, a tree? And Levi’s one looks like a bad Hallowe’en costume but-”

“What are you saying, you four-eyed imbecile?!” Levi advances threateningly towards Hanji, but Erwin snatches Levi by the collar of his well-pressed shirt and hoists him up in the air.

“No fighting,” he intones dully, shaking Levi a little. “Last time you broke the student council door, and I am not explaining any more damage to the housing authority.”

Levi bristles, but when Erwin deposits him carefully on the floor, he dusts himself off and doesn’t say anything.

“How do you fight the Shadows?” The question bursts out of Eren, and in that instant he looks more animated than Mikasa has seen him in their two weeks attending this school.

“You can attack normally with a weapon, or you can command your Persona to perform an attack.” Erwin motions to Levi; sighing, the shorter boy trudges over to behind one of the couches and pulls over a heavy wooden trunk. He heaves the chest open and reveals a veritable treasure trove of weapons. Mikasa can’t help getting a little excited; she has trained in martial arts all her life, but she has never been actually allowed to lay her hands on an instrument specifically designed to cause harm, and the trunk before her is stuffed with axes, bows, clubs, daggers, hammers, maces, spears, whips and, of course, swords. Eren lunges for the trunk and pulls out a pair of foils, but then tosses them aside for a morning star. Mikasa picks up a staff and passes it from hand to hand, feeling the weight of the polished wood in her strong hands.

“No guns?” Armin comments, picking out a pair of gloves with sharp claws attached.

“We wouldn’t want you to mix up your Evoker with a loaded gun, would we?” Levi grins malevolently, and Erwin pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I partly guessed,” Armin nods, tugging the gloves onto his hands and flexing his fingers. Erwin’s expression falls a bit, and he considers Armin deliberately. Mikasa is glad; people tend to underestimate Armin and his girlish looks and soft-spoken ways at first glance, but if she were in a fight, she would hate to have Armin on the other side.

“What kind of attacks can your Persona perform?” Mikasa inquires, directing her words at Hanji, who looks surprised to hear her speak.

“W-well,” she starts, straightening her glasses, “it depends on the Persona. My Persona is best with support skills, like analysing enemies, and recovery skills, or healing. Most Personas have some sort of status skills, which can affect both allies and enemies, like lowering an enemy’s attack or boosting an ally’s defence.” Mikasa nods, to show she understands, and Hanji continues.

“Personas do damage through physical or magical attacks. They can be single target or area-of-effect. Physical attacks are divided into slash, strike or pierce damage depending on what weapon you use, and magical are divided into fire, ice, electricity, wind, darkness and light, the latter two of which are insta-kill skills we call Mudo and Hama! And-”

Erwin covers Hanji’s mouth with his hand. “I think that’s enough.”

After a few minutes of general confusion and trying to pry the knives away from Eren, they hadall been assigned to different stations. Armin is still in the command room with Hanji, and Eren is out front with Erwin. She and Levi have been assigned to the roof.

She sighs irritably to herself and checks her watch-

Just as it grinds to a halt, both hands pointing helplessly at XII. The sky takes on an unearthly green tinge, and down in the streets she can see the people without potential Transmogrify into coffins surrounded by a weird red aura. The full moon above them glows a sickly yellow.

Levi turns around, and in a single fluid movement he pulls the Evoker out of his holster, presses its muzzle to his temple, and pulls the trigger without flinching. “Thanatos!” he announces as the blue aura that has appeared around him shatters to form what she can only assume to be Thanatos, his Persona. Even though Hanji’s earlier description of it is apt, the Persona is somewhat terrifying as well; the helmet it wears looks like a bear trap, and the katana that is holstered at its waist is wickedly sharp. The seven coffin-plate shapes that orbit it bear the images of a weeping angel clutching a cross to its heart, and as it floats down to stand beside Levi she swears it grins at her.

“This,” Levi brags, “is a Persona.” Thanatos lets out a growl, the sound echoing oddly through its metal helm. “Now…” He tosses her his Evoker. “Try.”

She stares at the not-gun clasped in her hands. She examines it, noting the sleekly polished steel of the chassis and the letters ‘S.E.E.S’ engraved on the side. The grip is worn with use, but well-cared for.

Even though she knows it is no more harmful than a toy gun, it looks far too real. She points it downwards, fingers anywhere but the trigger.

Levi sneers at her. “Too chicken?” Thanatos grumbles.

“I’m sorry.” She tries to keep her hands form shaking. “I can’t.”

“Well, you’ll have to. Do you want to do this for the first time in the middle of a fight? Trust me, it isn’t pleasant.” His eyes dart momentarily to the Persona standing beside him.

“I have always relied on the strength of my own two fists. I can fight without some head-demon’s help.”

“Oh, I know you’re strong, that’s obvious.” His eyes linger on her toned legs, on the breadth of her shoulders and sinews of her neck. “But if you think you can just go in there and punch every Shadow in the face… you’re wrong. You’ll never be able to protect Jaeger like that.” He strides towards her, Thanatos trailing behind.

“I will.” She remains obdurate in the face of his simmering annoyance.

“No, you won’t. If I didn’t, how will you?”

Just as he utters this, a huge roar shakes the building, forcing Thanatos’ trench coat to flap wildly. Erwin’s tinny voice emanates from the communicator on Levi’s belt. “Two of them- one is coming straight for- EREN!”

Levi curses and readies his blades, body dropping into a ready stance. Mikasa falls in behind him, feeling oddly defenceless as she raises her armoured fists to guard her chest.

“Ackerman, don’t do anything unless I tell you to. Got it?”

“Yessir!”

“Now-”

Levi doesn’t get to finish his sentence when a huge monster of titanic proportions rises above them. It is made of darkest Shadow and is composed solely myriad waving arms and hands, all clutching wickedly sharp swords. The mask held in one of its waving arms is the worst part; it resembles a human face with all the skin torn off, with empty black holes for eyes. The Roman numeral ‘I’ is carved into the masks’ forehead.

Levi rushes stem shadow, leaping into a whirl of steel. He lops off several of the Shadow’s arms but they are replaced almost immediately. Thanatos attacks the Shadow as well, but without instruction from Levi it is ineffective, and when it catches a blow to its midsection it dissipates. Levi chops off more and more arms, but he isn’t damaging it at all. “Ackerman!” he roars, fending off five blades at once. “What are you doing? Come and-”

Levi gets interrupted again, but Mikasa cannot find it in her to laugh when Levi is swept up off the ground by one of the Shadow’s arms. It slams him into the ground viciously, and she can almost hear his bones breaking from here. The Evoker slips out of her hands and clatters to the ground a few metres away as the Shadow roars right into Levi’s dazed face. Her senpai is struggling wildly, clawing at the Shadow, roaring profanities at it.

“Mikasa! Pick up the Evoker! Summon your Persona!”

She tries to run to him, but she’s frozen in place. She can see the Shadow’s whirling limbs as they nick Levi, as its maw in the nexus of the arms opens wide, but she gets the strange sensation of electricity jolting around her head, neurons lighting up, a s a strange voices begins to speak.

“I am thou,” echoes a whisper at the back of her mind, “and thou art I.”

Suddenly able to move, she makes a mad dash for the gun, narrowly dodging one of the Shadow’s hands. She picks it up with trembling hands and gazes down the barrel. She looks up at Levi, who is holding a finger gun to his forehead, staring at her desperately.

She stuffs the barrel of the gun into her mouth, and a sob racks her body. This feels too real, she’s too weak, she can’t do it, Levi is going to die and Eren might too, she’s just a helpless little orphan, she can’t-

“You can,” the voice insists, echoing loudly in her skull. “Summon me!”

She squeezes her eyes shut and pulls the trigger. Through the agonising pain, she hears the unmistakable sound of glass shattering.

“PERSONA!” The cry is torn out of her as she feels something burst out of her chest and zip towards the Shadow. A bolt of electricity sizzles through the air and strikes the Shadow straight on. It lets out an atrocious wail and begins to disintegrate, but the thing pummels it with charged fists. One of these blows frees Levi from the Shadow’s grip, and he starts to fall through midair. Mikasa runs wildly towards him and catches him just in the nick of time, his body plunging heavily into her arms, making her knees fold and her bones creak. The Shadow lets out a final screech as it finally dies, and Levi tires to raise his hand to her cheek, but he ends up grabbing at her shoulder.

“You took your time.” Blood trickles form the corner of his mouth.

“You’re hurt…” She lays him carefully onto the concrete and grasps his fingers in hers.

“Cast Dia, then.” His eyes slide shut, and she can see the heavy bags beneath them, accentuated by the bruises and lacerations along his high cheekbones and the blood making his hair stick to his forehead.

She whispers it beneath her breath and watches in awe as a soft green glow settles over Levi, sinking into his skin and making his wounds gleam emerald. He sighs in contentment. “See, Petra?” he mumbles, eyes opening slightly. “Didn’t I do something right?” The words are slurred and muffled. She opens her mouth to question him (Petra? She hasn’t met any student named Petra), but a shadow falls over them and she looks up to see a strange figure before her, twice as tall as she is.

It is a woman, she thinks, but she’s not sure, for her thighs and waist are as broad and wide as a man’s, and her skin is porcelain, visibly cracked to reveal molten steel. Her body is wrapped in white fabric and golden chains, the cloth embroidered with bolts of lightning, but instead of a woman’s face she has a wolf’s head. Her teeth are dripping with black gore when she opens her moth to speak, and her voice is distinctly feminine, but with a feral rumble running through it.

“Thou art I, and I am thou. I am Austrebertha, of the Strength Arcana. Only with strength can one endure suffering and torment, and thou shall have much of this to endure… yet I am here, and I will stand beside thee.”

Mikasa nods, and stand up shakily. Austrebertha inclines her head regally, wolvish eyes examining her with untamed instinct, and dissolves, solidifying into a tarot card that Mikasa plucks from midair. The number ‘XI’ is written on the back, and when she turns it around it bears an image of a woman holding a wolf on a leash. She slides the cards into her pocket and looks down at Levi, who is sitting up again. His head knocks against her bare legs.

“Well, well.” His lips curl up. “You’ve summoned your Persona for the first time. Tell me, how do you feel?”

“Exhausted,” she admits collapsing to her knees beside him. In an uncharacteristically kind gesture, he cradles her shoulder with his arm and pulls her closer to him. His heart is hammering, the rhythm accelerated by adrenaline and fear, and the thudding reverberates reassuringly through her ears.

“Of course. You’re going to fall unconscious soon, and I don’t think you’ll wake up for a while.”

She can’t find it in her to protest.

He turns his gaze skyward, eyes lingering on the full moon. “I must thank you for saving me, but one more order of business.” He pulls a scrap of red material out of his pocket and ties it around her upper arm. It bears the letters ‘S.E.E.S’ in bold print. “Welcome to the Specialised Extracurricular Execution Squad, Mikasa Ackerman.”

She smiles up at him vaguely, and her world fades to black.


	7. let me play to you a waltz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A waltz for four hands, and a hymn for the soldier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Characters: Levi, Mikasa Ackerman, all the Scouting Legion tbh, RivaMika  
> Notes: This just... happened.

The cavernous mess hall of the castle is rarely, if ever, full; mealtimes are scattered throughout the day in order to relive stress on the mess sergeant and his staff. Levi is well used to sitting on his own at the end of one table at the apex of night time, mindlessly digging dirt out of ruts in the wood with his nails.

But the hall will be full to the brim this night, three days before the 57th Expedition. Erwin had given all solders the evening and the following morning off, and while Levi knows he fully expected most of the soldiers to spend the night boozing and the morning recovering, he more than likely didn’t expect this.

Levi stands still as stone beside Erwin as they watch some soldiers try to carry a piano up a rather perilous staircase. Behind them, a woman laden down with a cello tries to stop a man from getting finger marks all over the polished wood by swatting him with the bow.

Hanji bounces excitedly beside them. “Isn’t this great?! They all took the initiative to dig out the instruments; who knew this old dump had so many? Beside, music will be much better than them all getting plastered. It might boost the overall morale levels too!”

Levi doesn’t voice his misgivings, but Hanji sees them on his face. “Oh, come on, Levi! Lighten up! They’ll have few days to recover and train before the expedition, too!”

Erwin glances down at him sideways. “Beside, Levi, aren’t you musical yourself?” Levi nods grudgingly. It doesn't surprise him that Erwin knows; the commander makes it his business to find out as much as possible about his underlings and their lives.

“Oh? Will you play for us?” Hanji masks her surprise with an imploring look.

“I’m not that good,” Levi mumbles, fidgeting with his cravat. “A girl I knew taught me.”

Back when he’d lived in Sina, there had been a club of sorts that he and his comrades would frequent. It was more of a bawdy house, really, or at least that was what his associates had used it for, but in the large central room, where men dandled courtesans in their laps and where the madam yelled and poured and laughed as raucously as humanly possible, there had been a grand piano. It wasn’t in the best condition; the once-pristine paintjob was nicked and scratched, one leg was propped up with old almanacs, and the notes were never quite in tune, no matter how impeccably you adjusted the strings; but it played, and that was the important thing, and with the piano came a pianist. She was a sturdy kind of girl with a plain face, not especially gifted in pleasing men, but that wasn’t the reason the madam employed her. Her job was to sit at her piano and play, and play she did; rather well, in fact. She even composed some of her own music.

At age sixteen Levi hadn’t been very interested in the bordello’s other attractions (why spend money on what he could get for free?), so he spent a lot of his time simply sitting and watching the girl play. When she had to serve behind the bar or guide patrons around, she lacked any kind of finesse and had a disarming tendency to break expensive objects, but when she played she was the image of gracefulness, absorbed into her own world of _arpeggio_ , _glissando_ and _scherzo_. One day, she finally noticed him his fingers unconsciously mimicking hers; and from then on he spent his time nestled on the bench beside her, watching in awe as she coaxed music form the piano, and then teaching him how to do the same. The other men laughed at him; why would anyone want to learn how to pay lullabies while in a brothel? Levi silenced them easily with a few glares.

But he hadn’t played piano for years, not since his final performance with the piano girl just before he joined Erwin. Her face and her voice had long faded from his mind, but the methodologies she had taught him had not.

He is yanked brusquely from his reverie by a discordant noise in front of them. Apparently, the greenhorns have decided to give them a preview of the night’s orchestral festivities.

The girl with the brown ponytail (Salsa, is it? No, Sasha, the glutton of the 104th) is blowing into a tarnished Frankish horn without much success. The sound is rather pitiful, and the girl’s face reflects that.

“Here, Sasha, gimme!” A skinhead snatches it from her grip and tries to make the thing work, but he only succeeds in looking like a squirrel, cheeks cartoonishly round.

One blond boy doubled over in the corner is laughing hard enough to burst something. His tall friend paws at his back worriedly. “Reiner, stop laughing! He’s trying his best!” Reiner, however, continues to guffaw, and skinhead Connie hurls the horn at Reiner’s head; the tall boy, Bertholdt, plucks it out of midair just before it collides with his friend’s head.

Levi scoffs and leaves before the teenage confrontation gets messy.

The tables in the hall are being heaved to the side as people set up. Several of them have been repurposed to form a makeshift bar counter and one woman behind the counter is stacking glasses and ordering bottles in a whirlwind of glass.

There’s something reassuring about the scene in front of him. All the soldiers, even in the absence of a concrete leader, are working in united harmony... even if they are marking the walls and scraping the table-legs against the floor.

Levi, after a few seconds of not-quite-indecision, rolls up his sleeves and gets stuck in.

 

Half an hour later, the hall is ready. The band is lined up along the back of the wall, and almost every instrument has a musician to play it. When the makeshift orchestra strikes up a tune, the soldiers hesitate, women and men separated by a no-man’s land, but one of the new soldiers, a dark and lanky girl, drags a small and delicate blonde onto the dance floor. The rest of the soldiers follow their example, the two sides surging into each other like a charge on the field of war. Levi hangs back, but Hanji finds him somehow and hauls him out into the midst of the fray.

From there on, everything is a confusion of out-of-sync dances, too many people and a healthy dose of beer. In spite of Levi’s dim opinion of parties, he grudgingly begins to enjoy himself. One rather memorable moment is a from a dance involving Petra; she has never done this particular one before, and lifting her into midair mid-dance and tossing her to Auruo definitely came as a surprise for her, but it was worth it to see her get all flustered, let out a scream while in transit and try to bite Auruo upon landing in his hastily outstretched arms. Levi gets a few satisfying seconds of crowing at her before Erwin, of all people, makes him crowdsurf involuntarily by lifting him up very high and dropping him into the middle of the crowd, who decided en masse to pass Levi up and spit him out at the pseudo-bar. At least he got a free whiskey.

Eren spins by him, stepping clumsily on Hanji’s feet; valiantly, the squad leader doesn’t flinch, even if she does send him a pained grimace. Armin is being dragged along by a tall medical officer, who manages to lead despite Armin’s efforts to do the same, which results in some glorious pratfalls. He spies Mikasa and Jean dancing together at a much slower tempo than the throng surrounding them, though not for lack of trying. Jean is walking her though the moves and Mikasa is biting her lip in concentration as she attempt to move her feet in sync with his. Levi has seen that self-same expression on her face many times in the course of training, and it is a little disarming to see it in this context; but in any case, it is rather sweet.

The orchestra are doing a very good job, he must say. The cellist, Bertholdt, is playing incredibly well; the rest of the orchestra have recognised this and are making his playing the centrepiece of their performance. Erd and Gunter are banging drums in syncopation, laughing, and Mike is playing a flute with audible gusto. Dita and Darius are a little further down the bar, singing a long-winded drinking song; as far as he can tell, they’re in the eleventh verse.

In the middle of this hall, Levi feels oddly relaxed. When he finishes his drink he doesn’t leave, as he normally would; instead, he joins back in. There’s nothing like a party to take your mind off a few probable funerals.

 

It is hours until the festivities wind down, and it takes another short while to reorder the chaos of the hall. Levi can feel the exhaustion beginning to sink into his bones, but while he’s still wound up from the whole thing, especially after that last dance with Petra, he helps out. Finally, the hall empties out. The tables are still against the walls, and some of the instruments still remain. At the bottom of the hall, a couple embraces. At this point, he is too tired to retire for the night, but he doesn’t want to intrude on the lovers either, so he moves up to the front of the hall.

Only a few instruments remain, mostly the ones that are very heavy or very delicate. Seeing as the majority of the Legion’s men were highly inebriated at the time, Erwin had ordered them to leave those few behind, even if he made that executive decision by spilling his ale all over Luke. He can see a piano, Bertholdt’s cello, and one instrument that actually isn’t an instrument, but a person.

His steps don’t evoke any response in her, except from the charcoal flicker of her eyes glancing at him.  They immediately snap back to focus on the thing in front of her.

“A zither?” he asks, words fragile in the air.

“...Yes, but that is not the word I was taught.”

“Taught?” Mikasa Ackerman does not look like the sort of person who gets formal music lessons on obscure alpine stringed boxes.

“My mother,” she murmurs, running her fingers lovingly along the polished wood. Something in Levi’s chest drops. “She taught me how to play the _koto_.”

The words slip off her tongue melodically. He knows of Mikasa’s exotic extraction, but hearing her present it to him like this is something else. When she turns to him her eyes are clear and sharp, not clouded with regretful memories as he would expect. “Sir, can you play?”

In answer, he slips over to the piano and trails his hands along the keys.  “A little,” he admits.

“Shall we play a duet?”

He glances at her suspiciously, but the words are said honestly. That’s the problem with the newbies; they’re too genuine.

He runs up and down his _solfa_ a few times to limber up. Behind him Mikasa picks out a few notes, the music reverberating with his bones. As he ascends in pitch, Mikasa descends.

“Shall I start?”

She nods, body hunched over the _koto_ in a way that reminds him inexorably of a mother with her child.

He starts with something simple, a song that everyone within the three walls knows. He plays through the first verse himself, but by the time he reaches the chorus, Mikasa joins in.

She plays in a way he’s never heard. Traditional zither music is meant for dancing in traditional clothes and yodelling, and as such is fast and lively with a strong rhythm. What Mikasa is playing is totally different; the notes are often elongated and left to quaver in the air on their own, before the music returns with an indulgent flourish. The tempo they keep is slow; Levi uses his heartbeat as a metronome.

They segue easily from song to song, time passing faster than he can track.  Levi hasn’t played in years, so he’s a little rusty but the skills come rushing back to him in a flood of memories, of a girl with a wide nose and dull eyes playing her heart out, tip of her tongue caught between her teeth, brow furrowed in concentration.

In the end, he shot her himself, when it was found that the madam of that house had been selling secrets to another gang. She had smiled as she died.

That was the day before he joined Erwin.

He wants to cry. He can feel the tears stinging at the back for his eyes, can feel a sob bubbling up in his throat, but he channels it into his playing. They’ve progressed from lullabies for the dead to dirges for the living, the _koto_ and piano resonating in a song he knows too well; the anthem of the Scouting Legion. A lot of it is sung in the old Allemanian tongue, but he has never bothered to find the meaning; he just mumbles along, his words a bastard approximation of what they really are. Right now, however, Mikasa is singing it perfectly, the strings of the _koto_ vibrating underneath her skilled fingers.

When they finish, she cuts the sound short with a discordant chord, but when he looks over at her she is not crying. Her face shows how hard she’s trying to keep it all in, lips trembling, eyes squeezed shut.

His senses take leave of him when he sees this powerful girl, crouched pathetically over a mere remnant of her proud culture. He slides off the bench and moves to sit in front of her, places his hands over hers, and pulls her into a brusque hug. She is shaking but refuses to let her tears fall. Her body, as muscled as it is, feels like glass, like if he hugged her too hard she’d shatter into to a thousand bloody pieces.

When he lets her go she is almost back to her stoic self, eyes dry, but his hands are still clasped in hers. She points towards the end of the hall, and he sees the couple dancing, even though their performance is over. Mikasa smiles tremulously at him.

“At least we did something good, huh?”

He nods haltingly. “We’ll do more.” The sentiment sounds weak, but it’s all he has to offer. Her hands are warm, the tips of her fingers slightly bruised from the strings.

He stands up and pulls her up with him. “Long day, tomorrow, Ackerman. Get to bed.” He tries to say it with his usual temerity, but Mikasa does not display any of her usual eye-rolling, mouth-pursing reactions.

“Yes, Captain.” She pulls her hands out of his to salute him; he stands there for a few seconds, gaping gormlessly at the clenched fist pressed to her heart, until he reciprocates.

When he leaves, she stays behind. He does not look back, but if he did, he would find her still saluting him and all the deeds he has done and has yet to do.

 _‘This will not be the last time we play together,’_ he vows to himself.

 This is one final promise he keeps.


End file.
